The story of blue: technology enabling culture, culture inspiring technology

By: Kristin A. Phelps

If you are reading this, there is a 40% chance that blue is one of your favorite colors. Several surveys across nationalities and genders all report that blue is the favorite color of much of the world. This preference, inevitably, has influenced cultures of the ancient Near East all the way to modern-day Puerto Rico. There are numerous theories as to why this is so, but what does blue, or any color for that matter, have to do with technology? How does technology impact culture and vice versa?

Some of you may remember a famous scene from the 2006 movie The Devil Wears Prada in which the significance of the color cerulean (a variation of blue) is (fictitiously) discussed. As described in the movie, cerulean makes its appearance in a single designer’s collection and then is picked up by other designers and eventually trickles down to mass retailers, providing money and jobs in its wake. Many of those jobs would have been undoubtedly technical in nature, providing the expertise to use machinery to create clothing. Undoubtedly, color is an artifact of our culture and, in this instance, culture pushes technology into providing the means of meeting the cultural demands of our society. To this point, Pantone (a company setting standards for color reproduction) chose the shade of blue called “Serenity” as one of the colors of 2016 and technology went right to work in enabling its use for fashion and decoration.

Now let’s go back a few millennia. A great example of the relationship between color, culture and technology is lapis lazuli. Lapis lazuli is an intense blue semi-precious stone which was much prized in antiquity. For the ancient Mediterranean and the Near East, the main source for lapis lazuli appears to have been the Sar-i-Sang mine in modern day Afghanistan which was active as early as the Neolithic period. Stone mined from the area made its way into the Near East, Egypt and the Mediterranean where it was used in jewelry making, seal stones, and inlay. In fact, the eyebrows on the famous gold death mask of King Tutankhamen are made of lapis lazuli from this mine. Because lapis lazuli had to be imported, it rapidly became a highly prized luxury item and was generally used only by the elite and for religious items. This was problematic for artists in Egypt who wanted to use blue as a pigment for tomb paintings. They found it prohibitively expensive to use ground lapis lazuli as a pigment (now known as ultramarine) and so created one of the first synthetic blue pigments, Egyptian blue, as an inexpensive alternative. Egyptian blue, which was meant to replicate the color of lapis lazuli, became a popular choice for artists up until the beginning of the Middle Ages. It was replaced in popularity by Azurite as a pigment, and then Azurite was replaced by the synthetic Prussian blue, which was in time replaced by French ultramarine (the first synthetic pigment which most closely approximated true lapis lazuli.). Throughout time, lapis lazuli continued to be the preferred pigment and arguably the inspiration for creation and use of other blue pigments with the help of technology that democratized its use and allowed artistic expression.

Without technology, we might not know as much as we do about lapis lazuli. Technology enabled ancient artists to ‘cook’ up the recipe to turn lapis lazuli into a pigment for painting. Technology has also allowed for the opportunity to utilize Ionoluminescence and cathodoluminescence to analyze probable origins for the lapis lazuli which was used in pigments. Both processes are non-destructive ways of analyzing the luminescence of a sample for deviations in the chemical composition. Scientific imaging also allows us to distinguish lapis lazuli from other blue pigments, and in the case of Egyptian blue, it offers a new solution to an old problem. When a red light is shined on potential sources for Egyptian blue pigment which has worn away and is no longer visible, this synthetic pigment emits an infrared light, not visible to the naked eye. The modern applications of this pigment include potential use as a security ink for paper money or official documents, with culture-driven technological advances being diffused in other aspects of our lives.

The interplay between culture and technology is interesting but why does it matter? Well, imagine the world without blue as a reproducible color—no Blue Period for Picasso, no blue jeans, no Coomassie Brilliant Blue to help in Western blot analysis, no blue in the Puerto Rican flag. Blue as a color is a part of our cultural heritage and is in use all around us. It is a color with national association for many, it carries significance for some religious groups and we use it to convey ideas to each other. Imagine the technological gaps we would have if culture had not pushed us into innovating around blue: how would are clothes be processed? how would our walls be painted? how would our money be made? how would our chemistry labs distinguish substances from one another?

At the Puerto Rico Science, Technology and Research Trust, our mission is “to invest, facilitate and build capacity to continually advance Puerto Rico’s economy and its citizens’ well-being through innovation-driven enterprises, science and technology and its industrial base.” Many other countries around the world consider culture and cultural heritage to be an essential part of well-being. If we define cultural heritage as UNESCO does, it is the tangible and intangible artifacts of being human. Tangible artifacts include museums, monuments, works of art, libraries, etc. Intangible artifacts are our traditions and rituals. In other words, our cultural heritage, our culture, are all the things that make us human beings. The Trust is working to provide for a betterment and a staying power for all the parts which make Puerto Rico a special and unique place—the tangibles which, via the interplay of culture and technology, can advance the Puerto Rican economy and the intangibles which make it home.

Author: Kristin A. Phelps is the Director of Cultural Heritage Technology and Innovation at the Puerto Rico Science, Technology and Research Trust. She is a former archaeologist and experienced photographer and digitizer with training in conservation. Kristin has worked at the British Library, the British Museum and Petrie Museum, pursuing her research interests in Cultural Heritage Imaging. She is passionate about using visual digital content to open up museum and library collections to the public.